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In a first for me, I am thrilled to report that one of my bird houses has produced a second nesting pair of this season. The first pair produced two chicks and then everyone moved out (I think) and now a new pair (I think) has moved in. I often wonder if the same birds come back but its impossible to differentiate between sparrows and Ive got a lot of them around here.

Played and finished Avowed. Pretty good game overall, would give it a 7/10 "Good". I'd also probably pick up a sequel, depending on where they intend to go with it (there is plenty of the living lands we haven´t been to, certainly would not mind seeing more of it), though likely not if they're going to charge 70EUR again. Forced dodge/parry based combat are not really my thing and just getting out of the way by just sidestepping an attack not being a real option kind of annoyed me. Aggro rules, if there are any, are rather opaque. There really did not seem to be any consistency on who mobs focus on. Even if you're in another room there´d be one that magically would chase you down to beat your skull in. Anyway, it obviously wasn't enough of a bother for me to not finish the game, but expletives were used at time. I thought the overall story was intriguing, though I do feel they dropped a bit too much information too early, by the end of the first area, if you're a bit of a completionist, you pretty much know the gist of what is going on and it feels as if the rest of the game just fills in the outline. The Scatterscarp major decision kinda felt icky to me, especially a scholar PC and/or Giatta should've been able to give more insight as to the consequences of one of the choices. It just felt like the devs were actively trying to rope you into a specific decision. The whole political angle to things, on the other hand, felt like it turned out a lot more black and white than I had hoped, which was a bit of a shame. Endgame choice While you appear "stuck" with your companions I did enjoy the ability to "agree to disagree" with them. That said there were, especially later in the game, some jarring inconsistencies in their reactions, where they'd praise you for something when it is happening and then scold you when talking about it in camp, or vice-versa. There was also the one quest near the end that made absolutely zero sense (the one with the stolen books in the archives) as you're given absolutely zero context so you're just making a decision blindly resulting in companion reactions that entirely out of left field. Thankfully that was the exception. Anyway, enjoyed my time with the game, would recommend (but not at the launch price). Aside from that I played through what is available of Subnautica 2 so far. Mostly it is more Subnautica, so if you didn´t like the prior ones, well, don't bother, but if you did, good times! The one thing that sort of annoyed me is the amount of hostile wildlife compared to the first one(s). I feel it cheapens the experience. It's a bit hard to explain, but feeling vulnerable and avoiding enemies as you didn´t know how dangerous they actually were felt like a big part of the earlier games. Having bits taken out of you on the regular kinda makes it less scary, if that makes sense? Curious to see how the game develops but they're off to a good start at least.

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? "No!" says the quest marker, it belongs to the impatient. "No!" says the in-game GPS, it belongs to the blind. "No!" says the witcher sense, it belongs to the stupid. I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Gothic. The Gothic Remake Shows What's Wrong With Modern Games

Celebrating my 50th birthday. 👴🏼

I have finished GreedFall: The Dying World. In general, the game has charm and I am happy with the time spent, but there are technical issues and minor bugs. In terms of combat, the tactical approach did not change much - the tank CC's, everyone else hits. The tank companion was able to restore both his armour and health, so could effectively hold the line indefinitely (or until the damage received was higher than the AP generation). The only issue was the range of the Taunt ability when there were many foes. The final boss died surprisingly quickly on the first attempt, being able to perform only a single attack each time between getting stunned. On the continent, there were much fewer giant "guardian" bosses, but the ones present were unique in combat design and appearance. When compared to GF1, where there were very few types but at least one boss per location (as everyone and their grandpa were turning into the tree zombies), the difference is noticeable. I strongly suspect that a deeper understanding of the systems would be required on the higher difficulties, as there are a lot of active and passive abilities, their synergies, and craftable consumables. I was looting a lot, but did not have the need to use resources, so I shouldn't have combed the locations - it was a significant time sink and interesting or unique items were only in chests and only in ~5-10% of them. On an amusing note, some armour descriptions were easter eggs - there was a jacket of Those Who Come After (Expedition 33), an armour of the Sands of Time (Prince of Persia), and some heavy cuirass referencing a Balor and a bridge (the Lord of the Rings, I believe). I like the equipment design quite a lot, though the colour schemes being bound to the equipment tiers was somewhat unpleasant (granted, only the tank really needed the armour). In terms of story, it was quite compelling overall. The PC is unavoidably mostly Neutral Good and can automatically do dumb ****. It is noticeable in the main quest, but there are more options in the side quests. The antagonist appeared in person fairly late, though the impact of the actions was felt throughout the game. I'd say that it is welcome, as talking BBEGs annoy me immensely. Unfortunately, the PC is also unavoidably a druid story-wise, even if they wear heavy armour and wield a rifle. As for the continuity, the quest outcomes tracked correctly (e.g. the Knight appears if survives), even if sometimes unpleasantly (I said a wrong thing to a random guy in the main quest, so he did not cooperate and died suddenly in a side quest, so I messed up a faction quest line). There are smaller inconsistencies, such as a companion firstly being told that the PC's father died, then 15 minutes later in an environmental auto-dialogue asking about what happened to the PC's father (as in whether he was alive). At some point, a companion can do an unwise action and die. I was able to ask the companion kindly not to do it, so the party member was definitely not dead. When we revisited the location where the dialogue took place, the companion's corpse was lying prominently next to the path and the very same character was standing right next to me and being quite alive. A smaller thing is that I had found a turban with a full-face mask early and wore it throughout the playthrough. Every NPC still recognised me as an islander and, in one scene, I drank a potion without removing the headgear. Several times, I got kicked out from stealth for the enemies to start a dialogue, despite them normally being unable to look down and see me crouching 2 metres away. Also, in a side quest, we found a lizard dog, a lewolan, who had been brought to the continent and quite stressed due to being a territorial animal in an unfamiliar environment. So, naturally, the party liberated the scaly doggo and stashed him in the cargohold next to the merchant. At no point there was an opportunity to release him back on the island, so he stayed there with the tail clipping through the wall behind. Overall, the side quests were satisfying and the number and variety were just right - no filler and the world did not feel empty. The companion quests provided an impressive range of activities, from the usual combat to stealth to puzzles, so I was quite happy with them. Also, somewhere from the mid-game, several capes with +2 to the talents became available, so they covered a lot of skill checks. I still needed some investment to get the Hard checks, but there were few enough of them. As for the other bugs, the game crashed a few times during cutscenes, I had only one corrupted save file and once the companions' bodies and hair failed to load, so I was talking to bald flying heads and hands. The more noticeable issues were the performance, the NPCs and textures loading late (so the props, such as brooms and sword were levitating), and the ship. When you travel between the main areas via the ship, you first get teleported to the ship, and only then to the chosen fast travel point. While the area loads (from an SSD), the game, including the sound, stutters and briefly freezes. It would have been better if the loading screen for this was just the ship sailing animation (either its concept art or something more fancy, like it moving on the world map), especially considering that the ship could be fast-travelled to at any time. One time (that I noticed), an optional merchant became unavailable (despite loudly advertising her services) and I missed a unique piece of armour. Regarding the DLC, I think it was released on 4 May, so Spiders themselves must have worked on it. From SteamDB, there have not been any file updates since. I suppose, unless the developers somehow reorganise and regain their IP, there might be no further support.

Greedfall: The Dying World The misadventures on the continent. I have discovered that there are timed quests by failing a side quest. No spoiler tags as it is fairly inconsequential. On the Olima markets, there was a noble berating her servant. The servant lost the noble's necklace. I quickly found it and tried several dialogue options to return it to the servant. The thing was that one of the companions was disapproving, so I decided to swap the party and return later. I got sidetracked and, when I finally got back, the noble and the servant were nowhere to be found and the quest promptly failed. There was nothing in the journal to indicate that it was a timed quest, however, the noble had mentioned going to a ball. So, while it is more immersive than the NPCs waiting for me for a few in-game months, the lack of clear time limits is unpleasant. The stealth system, on the other hand, is funny. There are several notable things. When you stealth-kill a hostile NPC and save/load, sometimes the remaining hostiles spawn at different positions, including the newly freed one. Another one is that you technically can approach from the front (~45 degrees) and, when you stealth-kill the opponent, they turn their back to you. And another one is that even with 1 point in the Stealth skill, the hostiles cannot notice you farther than a few metres away in the ~45-60 view cone in front of them. The companions, conveniently, are completely invisible. There are some continuity bugs, such as a quest NPC spawning after the related quest was completed or companions referring to the non-chosen options. It does not happen too often, but it is noticeable. When the quest resolutions are tracked correctly, it feels good, though. Other than that, I've spent most of the time trying to comb the areas for loot. I do not know whether I will ever need all those crafting ingredients or low level equipment, but if it is there, I must collect it (i.e. the game might be balanced in a way that considers the player looting everything in sight and if I do not, I will be at a disadvantage later). It is a fairly meditative experience. I am also certain that the playtime would have been halved (thirded?) if I did not do it. I think there are difficulty options, but I'd like to stick to the default one. On the other hand, it makes the story progress much slower than it could have been. There is also a new "feature" - you cannot take more than one companion quest simultaneously (the PC auto-refuses) and the companion remains in the active party until it is completed. I probably could just grab 3 people and do their quests in parallel, but I kind of understand the reasoning behind limiting it to 1.

World Cup Tourists Meet A*M*E*R*I*C*A

Went to see Project Hail Mary in a theater in San Fran. Then drove back. Had dinner some random diner on the way back. Quite a drive for a movie, but got me out and I feel a tad better. Hubby's currently unable/unwilling to do anything like that still (back) so I'm going to have to learn to do some activities alone. Which sucks imo. When is that surgeon going to call us.

You're gonna need a bigger pants.

I'm pretty sure that's a vanilla game issue. You can also keep summoned or "natural" weapons with the help of Spiritshift/Form of the Fearsome Brute, Draining Touch and Minor Blights*. So something with the implementations of "switching forms" and "switching weapons" along the way is not 100% watertight. * for example cast Minor Blights, then shift into an Ogre, then the right Ogre Fists weapon gets replaced by a minor blight - bc. they rotate elemental types and this will summon a new form of blight weapon every time, even when you are shifted and cannot cast, then when the fight ends before the Minor Blights and Fearsome Brute spell runs out you will transform back into your normal form - with an Ogre Fist in your weapon slot which you can use like any other weapon (it's auto scaling). They are actually pretty good because they always interrupt on crit. And they make a funny boink sound when striking with them. Same can be done with spiritshift weapons or the one handed Great Sword of Citzal (PL9 wizard spell). That's all without any mods.

I had to post this, cutest war cat video ever 😺

Happy father's day everyone. I took the family to Disneyland last week. It was expensive, but the crowds were light on 2 of the 3 days. The Star Wars area is amazing and I hung out there as much as possible. We hadn't been in a decade, so I am glad I got it in with them before they become full adults.

Are Scottish soccer fans drinking all of the beer in Boston? The Tartan Army is drinking the place dry.

Some US FIFA humor

The title should be obvious. I included very few screenshots related to the companions and a lot related to various unexpected or amusing situations. The ratio is probably the opposite. From the 2nd/3rd area, I had to turn the FSR on and it had some sort of sharpening built-in. I like the armour design. Freedom. Kind of. The loading screens look good. Somehow the melee party members manage to hit the Lookout Monkey. Can't beat the skill. The Knightess. Just a random area. The game is a bit rigid with traversal and, while it looks nice on the screenshots, the only way to navigate is with the Tracking vision on (the screenshot above). The boss I have ~140 screenshots on Steam (more locally) and I will try to share them here. Uxantis Olima Peren The Mid-game Spoiler-land Post-mid-game Our talking-tree god is the best god. It offends my sensibilities - these are not machetes. The Expedition 33 reference. The Prince of Persia reference. This is a kukri, not a saber. Stealth All 11 busts. Not the most interesting collectible. End-game

The Outer Worlds 2 is conspicuously absent from Xbox's roadmap despite supposedly having two DLCs planned.

I really hate that babyface. Not sure exactly what it is - maybe the lips? Something about it just looks so weird to me. It's probably supposed to look cute, but it just seems creepy to me.

I think I'm in the end game of the Chaos Gate Demon Hunters. Was able to kill the first of the five bosses in one turn. Kind of rushing through the game, as in I'm not bothering with getting to upgrade everything. Maybe it's because of that, but so far I have not experienced that the lack of enemy variety is bothering me.

yesss!

Maybe combat will be less exhausting than RT is sometimes

The protagonist's expression is as stupid as the writing in Expeditions: Rome...

Well... I hope story is good cause gameplay looks very mid. That has been my main reservation with C:R since the announcement - Remedy's gameplay tends to not be their strongest suit, and third person action gameplay is very rarely done well. Add to that RPG system, and the result could be really unsatisfying, unengaging smashy thing. That boss battle looked really dull - couple smacks in the face, chase it to the other side of the room while dodging some slow projectiles, smash again, chase it again etc. Reviews will definitely dictate how much I will be paying for this one.

Stuff that caught my attention from SGF (in addition to Alien Iso2 above): Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin is being developed by Platinum games. Their track record with the IP isn't great, but hopefully they will redeem themselves. I hear ninja Gaiden4 was alright My ex-Naughty Dogs. It will probably not be my thing, but I still found it quite compelling as a watch: Virtua Fighter6 finally got reveal, mostly focused on stuff previous entries didn't have - singleplayer story mode. I will be more curious what the veterans will think of gameplay once we know more of how the game plays. SF6 story mode helped me to get into SF, hopefully this will do the same for VI. Tried VI5 but to me being stuck in training mode and trying to figure things out the hard way just doesn't work. Eh, I hope it is good: SF6 roster reveal is bizzare. 3 newcomers (including story mode wet blanket of an NPC made playable character) plus Tifa. It could be very good - SF6 could use some more newcomers, but it is difficult to be hyped about characters you know nothing about. Also Allegedly no more new story content and it seems no new stages. Capcom is either brewing something big, or seeing how little they can invest in SF6 and still rake the same amount of money. And speaking of Tifa: Day one on PC this time around. Meh, I am mixed on this trilogy - the meta "uuuu we change the narrative" is very frustrating to me and it being the finale could be make or break story wise.

I'm still around. In fact, this forum is the only game developer forum I still frequent.

I remember losing weapons to form of helpless beast, maybe it's just the game rather than the mod

Maybe that's because the kitty is the guy's summoned familiar! 😸

Hold up, are you saying you didnt buy any of his NFTs?

I raised an eyebrow when I noticed Australia was part of Asia, where as New Zealand was part of Oceania. Aren't they part of the same regional football organisation (like UEFA for European countries)? Normally I would feel a bit sad, that Denmark isn't in the line up, but this time probably feeling a bit of relief. It saves people having to think about boycotting it or not

I decided to try to finish some of the almost finish games sitting on my drive. First one to go: Outer Wilds - got as far as to figuring out final solution, but with DLCs announced I stopped short of finishing the game. Time passed, bought the DLC, but didn't play it. Time to remedy it. The DLC (Echoes of the Eye) is a neat addition to the game, though I found it harder to crack then the base game. It also, however, make you think "is Outer Wilds a bad puzzle game, actually?". Something I noticed in EotE is that a lot of it is less about puzzle solving and more about wondering around, until you find pretty explicit information on what to do next. It's a bit as if game had a walkthrough in itself. I think I notices less of it the base game, as open universe feels more organic to begin with, both in terms of obstacles put in front of you, as well as how the hints are presented. EotE feels overall more contrived, so most solutions could at best be accidentally stumbled upon (hidden doors and invisible bridges, that sort of thing), and hints feel more contrived this time around. Still, some puzzles that require logical thinking are to be found, an atmosphere of Outer Wilds is special. Good game.

Yes, this I agree with you. I also don't care for DnD mechanics, for me because I find that it relies too much on random chance and does not give the player's character creation and advancement choices the centrality they deserve in how characters function. And also interestingly, my favorite DnD character has always been the dual-wielding fighter/rogue multiclass. 😀 Solasta is okay. I played and then replayed it once, and got my money's worth from it (including the expansion). But I doubt I'll want to replay it again. Hopefully, Solasta II will be significantly improved, especially in its character development and roleplaying aspects.

Oh I absolutely agree on the financial aspect, and it'll be interesting how much of the success will carry over to their future projects. I just don't find D&D, particularly in 5E guise, very compelling. This is especially true for my preferred RP class of rogue, which I now find distinctly unfun. Coincidentally I'm currently playing the final Palace of Ice expansion for Solasta. It's ...alright, though as I near the level cap the delicate balance that used to exist has finally broken. Just a standard feature of high level D&D I suppose, even with the attunement limit actually implemented.

Yeah the foundations to build upon are there, hope they do (only finished a couple contracts so far). Also made me want to replay Dishonored 2 (last time was six, seven years ago IIRC). On a slightly related note, last week also saw the release of Sir Kicksalot. Sir WHO you ask? The Adventures Of Sir Kicksalot - Trailer Puzzling how Dark Messiah's madness has never caught on. But then most devs seem again more obsessed with visual fidelity (everything must look cinema-perfect!) rather than physics and the madness that inevitably ensues. :D

Fished Act 1 of Olden Era and that seems to be all there is for EA. Maybe I'll try a scenario map while I wait for more.

Clearly you have no taste. This is IP usage is solid gold: Also all the Led Zeppelin music.

Byrne at 74 - still amazing. And ok, Colbert dancing in the outfit was cute.

Subnautica 2 too. Having fun so far. As @Hurlshort mentioned, there is nothing wildly different about it. Also having fun with HoMaM Olden Era. The nostalgia is of the charts on this one and so far it's not losing steam.

For a fiver it was a no-brainer (fan of the type). Still feels a little barebones (played 4 or 5 contracts so far). It's naturally also a more challenge-type game rather than a big narrative focus (still haven't tried CoOp, have you?). Funnily, I currently enjoy the (optional) simple stealth in Sir Kicksalot more (including the skill tree for a Thief type of character). But then that also sees me hopping from level to level, rather than the same 2 maps. And there's a lot more tools... I mean anything is a weapon, including fishes. Speaking of which, no idea why there's fishes jumping all over the place when I throw a baguette into the waters. And the postman upon hitting him just picked a chair to hit back. But then that's exactly the type of sandboxy madness I luv. 😁 (One of the first things I did in KCD2 was stealing guards and the tavern maid their clothes and armor, they were guarding and serving in their underwear for days hahahahah).

Thanks gaming gods for the indies. ❤️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci6dTx7HJs4&t

I'd guess that the larger a studio gets, the fewer risks they can take if they increase the production costs. Not wasting funds on "more graphics" or full VA does not seem to occur to them. The only developers I can name off the top of my head who keep their costs in check are Spiderweb Software and The Game Bakers (kind of - haven't played Cairn).

Hi, sorry for the late reply to these posts! I'll take a look at the issues/suggestions posted hopefully next week, the remainder of this weekend I'll be busy. aah yeah gonna check that out too Ah, interesting. I've considered adding a "comparison" view, displaying two GameDataObjects side by side. Maybe it would be nice to combine it with that... Oh, I'm going to check out the special character issue, thanks for reporting. I'll take a look at the terminal Exception, again thanks for reporting and sorry for the issues!

Sounds good! Another thing that I've thought about a lot, that would be soooo nicely accomodating: If one could set to have opened drop-down tabs for components, such as a GenericAbilityComponent's entry StatusEffects just as an example, stay open on all components when browsing around. Since I often don't "get," thus cannot freestyle, what I have to do to make something work as I intend I need to look up examples of other component's makeup, which I can then base my own component on and alter to the way I want it. So I very often have to look through a lot of components and entries in them. One case where this would really speed up things is when using the arrow keys to traverse components and having the components' opened and open/open/opened entries stay open. This feature would be sooo beautiful. 🤟 Perhaps a toggle next to the dark / light theme switch?

This is absolutely outstanding work. Thank you very much. I'm kinda late to the party but at least I can utilise it for future projects. Would you consider allowing the linux client to pull data from the Windows version of the game? Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the Windows version since I couldn't get the Linux version run some of my mods (via BepInEx).

Ghost of Tsushima. It's alright. It is just a better done Ubisoft-like open world games. While "following GPS" is nicely hidden within game's presentation, it is still a game that expects you to follow map markers and as such doesn't really encourage curiosity and exploration. It also looses its charm fairly quickly due to extremely repetitive and predictable nature of the title. And while, I must stress, it is very well done, it still suffers from some pitfalls IMO. Ratio of repeatable activities vs story missions is highly stacked toward filler content, which results in a game which IMO is both wayyy too long if you try to 100% it, and narratively underdeveloped, touching some potential narrative themes, but never exploring them beyond the surface level. Still had a-ok time with it, and if someone if feeling a need for a decent check-list title to pass quiet evenings, this one is worth giving a go.

I really liked how turn-based mode was improved in POE1 compared to Deadfire, so I made a mod that replicates all the main changes in Deadfire. Big thanks to the devs who made the TBM patch for POE1 - I wanted to make this mod for years but couldn't have figured out how to properly do it. 🙂 Main features: Characters no longer take one turn per round, instead they take turns as often as initiative allows. Rounds are fully redesigned - 1 round is fixed interval of 6.0 initiative, all status effects adjusted to take it into account. Same balance changes that were made for POE1 (increased lethality, adjusted gun reload speed, etc) - everything is configurable and can be adjusted if you don't like it. 0 influence on RTwP mode or other mods, should be compatible with anything and easily removable in case you don't like it/have any issues. Nexus link: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/854

Music for history study

Not right now, but I have "Ninagauth's Killing Bolt" on my TO DO list for my mod since sometimes the spectre isn't summoned on the first cast after loading the game (yeah, this one is weird).

Clippy RPG confirmed

after i spent a while can't find it, but given the monster body hiding hint. i start spraying disolve corpse thing and finally found it